If you wanna be a full-time content creator, STOP these habits now.

0:00Over the past 7 years, I've grown my YouTube channel from a hobby to a business that's made over $1.5 million. And that's profit, not revenue. This has been my absolute dream job, and it also happens to be a pretty lucrative job if you play your cards right. It makes me so sad when I hear stories of creators who went mega viral and got all these views and yet still struggle to pay their rent every month. It is so much more common than you would think, but it doesn't

0:28have to be you. if you avoid these five habits that are keeping you broke as a content creator. And thanks so much to ManyHat for sponsoring today's video. More on them later. [music] Look, I get it. This can feel really awkward, especially for women, because we were just not socialized to ask for what we're worth. And if you're a people pleaser like me, then I'm sure you can relate to the feeling of just wanting the, you know, negotiation to end so you can get out of that uncomfortable feeling. However, leaning into the awkwardness and taking time to advocate for yourself and for what you should get paid is going to make the biggest difference when

1:04it comes to your income. Okay, so rule number one, don't be the first one to say a number. You want to start the conversation off with the brand by asking them what the budget is for the deliverables they're requesting. Many times, if the brand tells you their budget, it might just be more than what you were going to ask for. In which case, score amazing. Because look, if the brand is going into this thinking their budget to pay you is $5,000. And before you even ask, you just come back saying that your rate is $3,000. They are not going to email you back saying, "Oh, actually,

1:36we'd be happy to pay you more." No way. They are just going to think, "What a sweet deal. We got a discount." That being said, in my experience, the question of what's your budget is more often than not met with, "Well, what are your rates?" It ends up being a bit of a standoff between both parties [music] if you're both refusing to just go ahead and say a number. So, at some point, you might just need to go ahead and say a price. Which brings me to rule number two. Don't have one standard media kit or rate sheet that you send to everyone. Every individual deal should be priced

2:05based on the specific circumstances. For example, let's say the brand comes to you and they want the content done within like the next week or so. You're going to want to charge extra for that because it's a rush job. But on the other hand, sometimes a brand comes to you that you know is going to have a lower budget. Maybe it's a small business, but you really love their product and

2:23you maybe would have talked about it anyway, and so you're willing to quote them at a lower rate. Personally, what I have is a media kit template that I keep in Canva, so I can edit it every time I'm replying to a new brand deal opportunity, and I'll just edit the rates inside the media kit to match the circumstances of that particular deal. This template comes included in my content creator starter kit, by the way, and it's linked in the description. Rule number three, never accept the first offer. I know this feels awkward, especially when you're a beginner and you just feel so happy to be getting a brand deal opportunity at all. However, it is not in your [music] best interest

2:55to just agree right away. Keep it within reason, but challenge yourself to always ask for just a little bit more. When you do this, you don't want to just arbitrarily ask for more money. Make sure you understand what your value proposition is. You might mention your specific niche audience that matches up perfectly with the brand's target customer. Or you might share examples of your past work. That's the exact kind of video that the brand is looking for for the campaign. For me personally, brand deals are by far my biggest income stream. So, negotiating every single one is a huge part of how I'm able to increase my income as a whole without,

3:27and this is the important part, having to do a lot more work. Think about it this way. It's so much easier to negotiate and convince a brand to pay you, say, $2,000 for a sponsored reel instead of $1,000 rather than having to do two separate $1,000 reels. Getting confident with negotiation is by far the best way to increase your revenue without having to increase your work. Number two, not charging [music] for usage and exclusivity. This is really common,

3:54especially among beginner creators who might not fully understand what these two things are. In brief, usage rights is permission for [music] the brand to use the content that you made in ads or content on their own social platforms. When you charge for usage rights, you're going to do this based on time. Never give someone perpetual usage rights. My recommendation is to charge 30% of your package price per month. So, if your rate for a sponsored reel is $1,000, then you would charge $300 per month for usage [music] rights. When you are reviewing your brand deal contract, this is something that you need to keep an eye out for because this has happened to me so many

4:24times where in the email exchange leading up to the agreement being sent, there is no discussion of usage or exclusivity. And then all of a sudden when I'm reviewing the contract, I see it listed in there. And when that happens, I usually go back to them and I say, "Hey, actually, this is stuff that I charge for. If you want to keep it in the contract, these are the rates. Otherwise, we're going to need to take it out." Exclusivity is when you promise a brand not to work with any of their competitors, also for a defined timeline. This is something I recommend charging for on a case-by

4:50case basis because it's really going to vary depending on how many competitors the brand has, how many of those you would have been likely to work with anyway, and of course for how long they want you to be exclusive for. One of the highest paid brand deals that I've ever done was so highly paid because it included 6 months of exclusivity in a category where there are a lot of competitors that I often do work with. And then on the other hand, there are some projects where I will include like a week of exclusivity without really charging extra for it because it's in a category where like

5:19I'll be honest, I'm like I'm not really going to be working with the competitors. And that's why exclusivity is always going to be on a case- by case basis. Bad habit number three, not optimizing for affiliate income. Affiliate income is an income stream that can be quite passive once you set it up right. On the other hand, though, it can be something that you are totally leaving on the table if you haven't optimized for it. The biggest recommendation I have for you is to use a platform to organize all of your affiliate links. The two main ones that

5:45I use are Genius Link and Shop My. Genius Link is where I organize all of my Amazon affiliate links. The reason Genius Link is so great is because it automatically redirects whoever clicks on your link to their local version of Amazon. Okay, as a Canadian, it's always been my pet peeve when I try to use influencers Amazon links and it takes me to the American version of Amazon, which just means that I end up like copying the product name and searching it on Canadian Amazon,

6:09which is not only inconvenient for me, but it also means that creator is not getting their payout. To avoid that, you can use Genius Link and it will do that automatic redirect. Plus, you can actually sign up for different countries Amazon affiliate program. So in my case, I have a US one, a Canada one, a UK one, and a Germany one. These kind of represent the main markets of people who watch my videos. And so not only do I make sure that when you click my links, it'll take you to the version of Amazon where you can actually buy stuff, but if it happens to be in one of those countries,

6:41it means that I also do get the commission from it. And Genius Link makes that all really easy to synchronize. [music] Not to shill too hard for Genius Link because they're not even paying me. But I do think it's pretty sweet that they will tell you if you're getting a lot of traffic from a certain country where you aren't signed up for the affiliate program. And it will even highlight when your links are broken, particularly ones that are getting the most clicks, so that you can solve that and make sure you're not missing out on the commission. Now, ShopMy is kind of different. If you're familiar with LTK, it's basically an alternative to that. I just find

7:09it more userfriendly. You can grab links from all across the internet basically and just paste them into ShopMy and it will generate an affiliate link for you and it lets you create a nicely designed and organized storefront. I use this more for lifestyle related links and there's this really convenient app that you can get on your phone which means if somebody's [music] like in your DMs asking for a link to a product you can just switch over to the Shop My app, copy the link and send it to them. Another big strategy that I have is keeping my Manychat automations up and running

7:34for my most frequently asked for affiliate links or stuff I plan to mention in a lot of content. I just keep using the same trigger word and I have the automation set up to run on all posts and then I know as I'm making my content I can just say, "Hey, comment X for the link" and I don't even have to worry about going into Manychhat to set it up again. Habit number four, being too shy to promote your own stuff. I will be honest, I've been guilty of this one myself. I don't know why, but I find it easier [music] to promote the brands that I work with or even products that I really

8:02love for like affiliate commission than I find it to promote [music] my own digital products and services, which is so silly. I really do think it's important for creators to have their own offerings because it usually is a higher profit margin and it's something that you can design from scratch to make it really valuable for your audience. That being said, you do need to have the confidence to actually talk about it because imagine that if you want people to buy your stuff, you have to tell them it exists. My biggest tip for this when it comes to short form content is to design a signature series around promoting your offer. For example, this is something that

8:34I've started doing recently to promote Creatorly Media, my editing agency. So, we edit videos for other content creators. We've been doing long form and just recently we've started editing for short form creators as well. And in order to promote my services, I've relaunched my editing 101 series on Instagram. In the series, I share basic editing concepts that I think would be helpful to beginners. And then at the end of each video, I also say, "Hey, if you don't want to have to edit for yourself, you can come and work with my team." And I can turn those viewers into clients by using automations from Manychat. I actually recently did a big overhaul of my Manychat automations,

9:10and I've already seen a huge increase in applications for clients at Creatorly. Basically, beforehand, I used to have people simply comment a keyword and then I would automatically DM them the link to the Creatorly website, which is fine, but it's a little bit basic. Now, instead, when you comment editor on one of my posts, you'll get a DM from me first asking you a question about where you're at in your creator journey. If you respond by saying that you are looking for editing help right now, then I will reply by sending you a graphic that breaks down the different packages we offer and what's included, plus a voice note explaining our workflow. I think

9:45a lot of people don't realize this that in many chat automations, you can actually send images, videos, voice notes, and I just think that's such a fun way to personalize it. Like it doesn't have to all be textbased. After I send through all of that, then I follow up by asking for the potential client's name, email address, and what their brand is. And by using a Zap year automation,

10:02we send all of that from Manychat into Dubsado, which is our like client relationship manager. And it basically autogenerates a application that would be the same as if you applied on our website. This has been huge for making it easier to apply to work with us because you can do it all through your Instagram DMs and you don't even have to go to the website. I have loved using Many Chat to turn commenters on my reels into clients at my agency and also help with my conversion rate on digital product sales and my brand deals and affiliate links as well. So, if you want to check out Manychat for yourself, you can use my link. It will actually get you 30

10:34days of Manychat Pro for free. And thanks again to Manychat for sponsoring today's video. Okay, the last habit that I'm going to need you to stop if you want to truly start making money and become a full-time content creator is creating content for brands in exchange for free product. I get it. Especially when you're first starting out and a brand comes to you and they offer you product that you kind of wanted to buy anyway and all you have to do is make a reel about it. It can feel like a pretty sweet deal. Okay? And look, I am not 100% [clears throat] fully against ever doing product

11:02for content trades. For example, sometimes there are strategic moments where it makes sense. Let's say, for example, there is like a brand in your niche that's really going viral and maybe they're releasing a new product that you know everyone is going to be talking about and you want to get your hands on that product so that you can make content about it because you know that content is going to perform really well for you. In that case, you might take free product from a brand because there are other benefits for you in terms of your bigger picture content strategy. But these are the kinds of calculations that you should be making when you're considering taking these deals. If

11:36it's just cuz the free thing seems [music] fun, you might want to rethink that. However, if you want to turn this into a career where you actually make money instead of it just being a hobby where you sometimes get free stuff, you're going to need to pivot from accepting free product to actually charging. The best way to do this is when brands reach out offering you product for deliverables, what you're going to say back to them is, "Hey, I'd love to work with you. I'm a big fan of your products. However, I'm not able to accept product as compensation. If you'd like to work with me on

12:05some content, these are my rates." And then you can attach that media kit that has been customized for them. I think it's important to be realistic about what your rates should be when you're first making this transition. Like, if you keep it affordable, it'll be an easier decision for the brand to make. I think the other important thing is maintaining those boundaries because chances are sometimes the brand will respond and say, "Oh, sorry. We actually don't have budget for this. We can only send you the product." And if that's the case, then you're going to have to just say no. And not take the free stuff. I know it can be tempting cuz free stuff is fun,

12:36but you're better off maintaining your boundaries and then actually having a chance of maybe getting a paid campaign with that brand in the future rather than just caving for the sake of a freebie. Being a successful creator is partly being good at content, but it's also partly being good with money. A lot of people don't think of it this way, but it really is running a small business. So, having these basic financial skills is key. If you want to know more about my approach

12:58to money as a content creator, I have made a bunch of videos about financial transparency. You might want to check out this one next. This is kind of more like my wider philosophy and how I manage money kind of personally as well. And let me know in the comments if there's any money related topics you'd like to see me cover in the future. As always, thank you so much for watching.

13:14I hope you're having adventures and following your dreams. And I'll catch you in the next video. Bye.